Madame Pernelle And Tartuffe Analysis

In Tartuffe, Moliere's use's plot to defend and oppose characters that symbolize and ridicule habitual behavior's that was imposed during the neo-classical time period. His work, known as a comedy of manners, consists of flat characters, with few and similar traits and that always restore some kind of peace in the end. He down plays society as a whole by creating a microseism, where everyone in the family has to be obedient, respectful, and mindful of the head of the home, which is played by the father Orgon. Mariane shows her obedience when she replies "To please you, sir, is what delights me best." (Moliere 324,11) Shortly afterwards, Orgon commands Mariane to take Tartuffe as her husband even though she is not interested in him at all.

In Molière's Tartuffe, translated by Richard Wilbur, the central character, a man named Orgon, has been completely brainwashed and taken advantage of by the title character, a lecherous and parasitic "holy man." Tartuffe has made use of one of the oldest scams in human history to insinuate himself into Orgon's household; he appeals to Orgon's desire to be a good, upstanding, and pious man by appearing to be the same. Tartuffe's manipulations are evident to everyone but Orgon, and seem to the reader to be blatantly obvious. His use of religion to manipulate Orgon is consistent throughout the play. In his religious zeal, Orgon is blind to the truth about Tartuffe's character. As a result,

During this time in France the church was very powerful politically and economically, the church did not really want to educate many people, especially poor people (Gildea 225). Life for nobles and clergy were very different from the farmers in the 1700’s. Nobles did not have to work. They basically had nice things and lived in big houses and ate a lot of good food. Noble's daily meals consisted of a variety of meats, and sides of cheese and wine (Gildea 119). Bread and anything grown in the ground was considered peasant food and was not eaten by the nobles at all. This is the way life had been and it slowly began to change in the 1700’s.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere was one of the greatest writers of the seventeenth century, being considered by many the greatest author of French comedy. In his plays, called “comedies of manners”, Moliere satirizes the morals and social conventions of his contemporaneous human society by using stock characters. In Tartuffe, a comedy of five acts, the main topic is the analysis of religious hypocrisy and leader figures of the seventeenth century, portraying Tartuffe in contrast with personages like Orgon.

Throughout time, man has used many forms of deception to get what they want. Moliere’s play Tartuffe is a classical story about deception and how a “mask” is used to hide someone’s true intentions. Moliere applies the idea of a mask and a theme of deception to exploit the power struggles within a traditional household. The character Tartuffe employs deception so he can achieve social and economical standings while Elmire, Mariane, and Dorine use deception to defy the authority of Orgon over the entire household and to help bring back family harmony.

Moliere's Tartuffe is a satire based on religious hypocrisy. Every character is essential in Tartuffe. All of the characters play an important role, but it is easy to say that Tartuffe and Orgon are the main characters. First, we must know the definition of satire. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, satire is defined as "literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn" ("satire"). In other words, a satire is defined as literary work that uses humor to point out the foolishness of a person or just in human nature. Religious hypocrisy can be self-defined as a false assumption of a person. What follows are examples of how I believe Tartuffe exposes humor

The church and the state had to contend with the growing influence of the Enlightenment and the need to strike a new balance with religion, a more utilitarian balance determined in large part by its own political rationalism. Power was held within the monarchy and the church. The monarchy of France and the Catholic Church were allies that were unbreakable. The King was the master of the temporal realm, while the Church under his protection ruled the spiritual realm. Kings derived their authority from God and stood immediately below him in rank. The monarchy had the support of the church and the church had the support of the monarchy. Power was based on morality and the church thrived on positive morality and the monarchy was proof of this morality. The balance between these two powers in France was equivalent to one another. The whole system

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere wrote Tartuffe during the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the main characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment was a push towards using reason over emotions to make decisions. The leaders of the enlightenment truly believed that the world could be made a better place if people did this. In Tartuffe, when the characters use their emotions to make their decisions they find themselves in undesirable situations. While those who let their emotions rule them find their lives spinning out of control, there are other characters in the play who try to approach them with reason and logic. Out of these characters the lady’s maid Dorine stands out as the voice of reason.

Tartuffe is the ultimate hypocrite in this play due to his immoral actions that go against the Catholic ethics, which he preaches. Though he asserts to be religious, righteous, generous, he is in fact, deceitful, avaricious, and immoral (Cashman 80). Tartuffe hypocrisy is contagious, dangerous, and has a negative impact to those surrounding him; it affects Orgon by destabilizing his entire family and making them believe him as a supposedly spiritual man. Furthermore, those who result in believing him grow into pretenders. For example, Madame Pernelle who preaches Christian kindness, assaults her house help, whereas, Orgon commits wickedness against his household. Notably, some characters, such as Elmire, Dorine, and Cleante are strongly against Tartuffe’s hypocrisy. Both Dorine and Cleante employ rhetoric linguistic to attempt to contradict Tartuffe, and although their opinions are coherent, it is hard to triumph against him. Elmire notes, “You see him as a saint. I’m far less awed…in fact, I see right through him. He is fraud” (1.1.23). This aims to expose Tartuffe for what he truly is, by exploiting his lust for her to attest his insincerity to his spouse Orgon.

Jean-Baptiste Moliere, who was originally named Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, was one of the greatest and well-known comic dramatists. He was known as one of the greatest and famous comic writers mainly because his works challenged the imprudence of trusting reason for different life events. One of Moliere’s most famous works includes Tartuffe primarily for the amount of controversy it sparked related to satire. Tartuffe is a play that tells about a man named Orgon, who is a wealthy family man, who takes a stranger into his home named Tartuffe. He later indeed is discovered to be a religious hypocrite. He doesn't have any morals or indeed values religion. Tartuffe simply used religion as a disguise to manipulate people and do his crimes. He pretends to be extremely religious, but from his actions and behavior, it goes entirely against the morals of religion. For example, when Tartuffe sees Dorine in Act 3, Scene 2, he tells her:

The 17th century French aristocrat Michel de Montaigne lived in a tumultuous world. With the spark of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, the fire spread rapidly to France. The nation divided against itself. The rebellious protestant Huguenots and the traditional staunch Catholics both viewed the other group as idolatrous heretics in time when that crime could justify execution. Consequently, Catholic monarchs throughout Europe felt the impending threat to their reigns, too, because if they supposedly ruled through divine right, what would change concerning the support of their subjects? After the peace-making Edict of Nantes, rehashing the religious conflicts of the century was forbidden, but seeing his country—and even his own family—torn apart, how could one refrain from comment? So in his writings, Montaigne has to write around his actual subjects. This isn’t to say, however, that he conveyed none of his ideas directly. Montaigne criticizes the cultural belief in a correct way of life, opposing the idea with a more relativistic viewpoint, though the way in which he presents it, as mere musings in personal correspondence, fails to effectively convince his readers.

In Moliere’s “Tartuffe,” although many things and behaviors are satirized, the play focuses mainly on the issue of religious hypocrisy. Whereas Tartuffe is the obvious hypocrite and

The context surrounding the period in which Tartuffe was written in, the 17th Century is remembered as being a time of extreme power for the French Monarchy. King Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu transformed France’s feudal monarchy to an absolute monarchy. What must also be noted about this time is the fact that the Catholic Church and Politicians had a great deal of power over authors and playwrights. In this time of social and religious persecution, Molière created Tartuffe , a comedy dealing with hypocrisy and to a great extent, religion and how religion can be used in a negative way, to mask sin. The play is known to be offensive towards the Catholic Church and religion in general. When it was first performed in 1664, it was censored,

Jean-Baptitste Poquelin Moliere’s Tartuffe, is undoubtedly a satirical comedy. In Moliere’s description of a satire, he was very direct as to the function and objectives of one are. The function is to correct men’s vices, using satire to ridicule them and expose them to public laughter (Moliere, p.14). Although this satire is making fun of many things in the church and organized religion, which is not the only objective Moliere had in mind. Tartuffe has many themes that reoccur through out the play. The time period, in which this play was written, was known as the Age of Reason. One of the main ideas and attitudes during this time was, reason must always control passion. Due to this

Moliére's Tartuffe has long been considered a masterpiece of French Literature for its powerful social commentary, finely sculptured characters and its presentation of moral theme. While Tartuffe stands soundly on its own merits, its curiosity and impact for audiences both within its own period and for contemporary productions are heightened by the history surrounding its original presentation.